Inquest finds woman died from drug and alcohol toxicity

A Bailieborough woman was found to have “toxic” levels of Fentanyl in her blood, linked to her use of pain patches prescribed to her own mother who was dying from cancer at the time.

The inquest of Mary Conroy, Lakelands, Tunnyduff, late of Mountbellew, Galway, also heard she had “metabolised” cocaine, as well as traces of prescribed medications and alcohol in her system.

A verdict of death by ‘misadventure’ was formally recorded for Ms Conroy, whose body was found at her Bailieborough home on Sunday, September 16, 2018.

Ms Conroy’s death occurred following a house party that began the afternoon before.

There were no family present at the hearing before Dr Mary Flanagan at Cavan Courthouse.

Garda Sergeant Dermot Lavin read the depositions of witnesses into the record.

Martin Ward of Feakle, Co Clare, was Ms Conroy’s partner of many years. “We were as good as married,” he had told gardaí.

He recalled how he and Ms Conroy had already started drinking on Saturday, September 15, with Ms Conroy consuming vodka, before relatives from Donegal, Debbie and Brian Ward, arrived.

Though “slashed” late on, he still remembered Ms Conroy’s daughter Elizabeth putting her mother to bed.

When he eventually followed, he said Ms Conroy felt like a “hot water bottle”.

But the next morning he awoke to find Ms Conroy unresponsive and “cold” to touch.

An ambulance was called but they were told it was “too late” to try administer defibrillation.

Mr Ward told gardaí he “didn’t see any drugs” being consumed the night before. He had never heard of Fentanyl, and any drugs taken by Ms Conroy were from her doctor.

In her deposition, Ms Conroy’s daughter Elizabeth told gardaí how shortly after 12 noon on Saturday, September 18, her mother and Mr Ward were arguing.

“Mam got up and said she was sick of him,” recalled Elizabeth, who remembers Mr Ward “grabbing” her mother by the neck and hair.

Soon after Elizabeth and her mum went for a walk. Ms Conroy told her daughter that Mr Ward had said she was “too old for him” and “no fun any more”.

“My mam was only 37 and Martin about 34 or 35.”

She said her mum told her that Mr Ward only started arguments as an “excuse” to go drinking.

Elizabeth recalled Martin on the phone to Brian Ward earlier that evening telling him to bring “stuff”. Elizabeth believed that to mean cocaine.

Between 3-4pm, Mr Ward and Ms Conroy started drinking, with Debbie and Brian Ward arriving around 9pm.

She emerged from the room after babysitting at 1.30am.

She noticed lines of “white powder” on the table in front of Mr Ward, who it’s alleged was goading Ms Conroy: “Are you going to take any of this handicap woman?”

But Ms Conroy declined, saying “she didn’t want any of that stuff”, and left the room.

“I think Martin forgot I was sitting there,” says Elizabeth. “I saw him use his hand to put one of those lines of white powder into my mother’s drink. I asked what he was doing and he said ‘get the f**k into that room before I kill you’.”

Elizabeth exited her room a second time around 2.45am to find Debbie saying to Ms Conroy: “‘C’mon Mary, this is how you take it’. She was referring to the white powder, which she was holding on a tray. I said ‘stop Debbie, that’s dangerous. Mam doesn’t need any more of that stuff’. Martin told me to mind my own business.”

Ms Conroy’s speech was “slurred” by now , and Elizabeth tried to “distract” her mum so that Mr Ward would not “get vexed” with her.

At around 3.30am Ms Conroy finally went to bed, with Elizabeth helping her, and sitting next to her mum. She said they spoke for a while, “about the future” and other things.

The next morning she heard Mr Ward shouting “come quick there’s something wrong with Mary”.

“I thought they were messing with me,” Elizabeth told gardaí. Ms Conroy was lying in the bed on her side, covered in the bed clothes. “I went over and tried to open her mouth but it was as though her jaw was locked.”

An ambulance was phoned, and Elizabeth was put through to an operator who talked those present through carrying out chest compressions.

She told gardaí how she remembered seeing a “clear coloured” patch on her mother’s arm, and a word like Fentanyl written in “blue” coloured writing.

Elizabeth made a second statement in 2020, explaining how she saw her mother wearing those same patches on her arm “three or four times” between February and June 2019. “I remember she told me it was for pain relief, that’s all she really said.”

Garda Mairead Fox, attached to Bailieborough Garda Station, received a call about a sudden death at a house near the town, arriving at 12.20pm.

The body of Ms Conroy was formally identified by Mr Ward. Also present was Elizabeth, who was “visibly upset”.

Mr Ward explained to gardaí that a house party had occurred the evening before. He admitted that a “large amount of alcohol” had been consumed, and Ms Conroy was “drunk” but not beyond “normal”.

Elizabeth told gardaí how her mum drank three quarters of a bottle of vodka that night, and how she had “put some of Mary’s vodka down the sink the previous day”.

A paramedic informed gardaí there had been “no signs of life” on arrival.

Scenes of crime arrived too, and after speaking to the coroner, an examination of Ms Conroy’s handbag took place. They found anti-anxiety and sleeping medication Alprazolam, prescribed in Ms Conroy’s name and to be taken once daily, and Zimoclone, to be taken once daily also.

Gda Fox further noted evidence of a “lot of alcohol having being drank” elsewhere in the house. “There were bags of cans and empty tins of beer on the table, and an empty bottle of Smirnoff vodka. I also observed an empty bottle of vodka in a box in the kitchen along with old food clippings.”

A doctor arrived and formally pronounced Ms Conroy’s death at 1.15pm, with her body then taken to Cavan General, before later being moved to Navan for post-mortem, which was carried out on September 17.

Dr Muna Sabah, consultant pathologist, told the inquest how samples of Ms Conroy’s blood and urine were sent for toxicological analysis. Her blood contained an alcohol level of 167mg per 100ml.

In addition, there was a “mixture” of prescribed medications including sedatives and anti-depressants.

She also had cocaine “metabolised”, and a “toxic level” of Fentanyl in her blood, said Dr Sabah.

Her conclusion therefore was that Ms Conroy died as a result of mixed alcohol and drug toxicity, naming specifically the discovery of cocaine and high levels of Fentanyl found.

When probed further by Dr Flanagan, the pathologist noted where Ms Conroy’s daughter said she seen her mum wearing a clear coloured patch what is believed to have been a Fentanyl patch. This was not present at the time of the post mortem examination.

Dr Sabeh commented, in relation to the drug traces found, saying cocaine and Fentanyl - taken both together - “would have contributed” to Ms Conroy’s death.

“She was still alive, but maybe in a coma. And then Fentanyl was found in her system, and that was in a toxic range.”

Asked if gardaí had found the source of where Ms Conroy attained access to Fentanyl patches, Detective Garda Vincent O’Boyle explained how the deceased’s mother was suffering from the late stages of cancer and had been prescribed the “severe pain relief medication”.

He said Ms Conroy may have “got hold” of the patches and had been using them “on her own arm”.

She was not known to have been suffering from any illness requiring Fentanyl, nor had she been prescribed the patches.

Dr Flanagan recorded a verdict of death by ‘misadventure’ caused by mixed drug and alcohol toxicity, prefaced by prescribed and non-prescribed drugs.

The body of Ms Conroy was laid to rest following Funeral Mass at St Mary’s Church, Mountbellew.